Thom Story: Journey into Information Architecture

Several years ago I was profiled in a professional communication journal. I reworked my "Thom Story" for an upcoming book entitled "UX Storytellers." Here's my tale:

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I wasn’t born an information architect. I couldn’t even figure out what I was going to do when I grew up.

I thought, somehow, a career would materialize in a dream—that I would wake one morning and say, “I’m going to be a management trainee!” I felt it was only a matter of time before I would don a dark suit, surround myself with facts and figures, and hammer out business decisions that were good for the organization.

But this urge never struck. Instead, I took job inventory tests and wrote descriptions of classes I liked and didn’t like.

My career advisor returned one book-length inventory with the comment, “Excellent inventory, but obviously you don’t know what you are going to do.” By the time I completed college and graduate school, I decided I had failed at the ONE THING I was supposed to get out of my education: I still didn’t know what I wanted to do when I grew up.

Nonetheless, armed with an education and a desire to do … well … something, I packed my 1977 yellow Hornet hatchback and headed for Washington, D.C., where I found a dumping ground for people like me—college graduates who didn’t know what they wanted to do when they grow up.

In the early 1980s, when I moved to D.C., the U.S. government had started contracting professional services to small corporations. Washington quickly became riddled with these “Beltway bandits”—most of them identified by acronyms and initialisms. In 12 years, I worked my way through the alphabet: ETI. CTA. SSI. CCI.

During this time, personal computers moved into the workplace, where they were used primarily to crunch numbers and develop print products. Those of us in government contracting soon used computers to support efforts. It’s a kind of government-speak for providing professional services. Contractors support efforts by completing tasks and submitting deliverables.

I was young, idealistic, and ready to help my companies support efforts! So, in support of EPA Contract 68.01.7030, FEMA Contract EMW-5-C2075, and multiagency Contracts OPM-89-76 and OPM-87-9037, I became absorbed by preparing deliverables—providing reams of paper for federal agencies.

“You know all that work you did for us?” a government contracting officer later asked me. “We had to hire a contractor to come in and tell us what we had.”

What was I doing? I liked my work—using principles of rhetoric I had learned in school. Like Aristotle and many of his followers, I believe information can be crafted differently depending on whom it is for and what they need. I was motivated by my passionate belief that end-users of information matter.

* * *

Spring 1995. A colleague and I share a few words between professional conference sessions. “I don’t get it,” I said. “I’m a writer and rhetorician, but I like presenting the information graphically so others can use it. Maybe I’m a data stylist.”

“Oh, no,” he responded. “You’re an information architect.” That was the first time I ever heard that word.

Information architect. I liked the sound (kinda cool). And I liked the image: I envisioned structure. I was fond of structure. In my job, I enjoyed shaping documents and products so they made sense to others. For fun, I’d spend hours looking at ways visual designers clarified complex data.

“That’s a much better title than data stylist.”

My colleague directed me to the writing of Richard Saul Wurman, who coined the term. Within a week, I had inhaled Wurman’s book Information Anxiety. I found a lot I liked.

Wurman asks us to build understanding businesses—organizations devoted to making information accessible and comprehensible. He challenges us to identify new ways to interpret data and build new models for making it usable and understandable.

He asks us to “re-educate the people who generate information to improve its performance.” That advice mattered to me.

That was me: Information structurer. Builder of products that help people get things done. Educator. (Well, in my heart. I’d begun teaching part-time, but I still spent most of my workday creating deliverables. )

By the time I discovered Information Anxiety, I'd worked for almost 12 years in a three-foot by five-foot cubicle surrounded by federal workers, tasked with supporting efforts.

“How,” I wondered, “could someone with gusto in his soul spend his days surrounded by mauve decor, busily preparing deliverables? How could I work with people who don't respect understanding but instead do things because they've always been done a certain way?” I needed an escape plan.

I sought advice from a former boss. “How do I get out of a mauve cubicle? How do I find something I truly believe in? How can I work in some way that really makes a difference?”

She directed me to a lifework class. “It’s 10 weeks. It’s cheap. You’ll love it.”

Most of us in the class were government contractors. During the first week, we talked about our jobs. During the second week, we took time to dream about what we would be doing if we could do anything—no limitations; only dreaming. In weeks three through eight, we examined our pasts and reviewed our goals.

In week nine, I quit my job.

I hadn’t planned to quit my job, exactly. But I was part of a team dismissed because of a contractual meltdown. My contractor boss offered to find me another role. “Perhaps,” he said in all seriousness, “you could work for Norm.” Would you like that?”

I reflected on what I had learned in lifework class. I was searching for work I loved. I felt in my heart that I wanted to enable others to find their way through information, and I believed in Wurman’s call for information businesses that emphasized supporting others. I also knew I wanted to teach.

So when my boss said, “You can keep a job with us if you want to work for Norm,” I thought, “I wouldn't love to work for Norm. I have to find work I love—right now.” So I quit, and I officially became a full-time information architect.

Of course, in 1995, there were some difficulties. For example, almost no one knew what an information architect was.

***

“WHAT HAVE YOU DONE!!!!!”

I screamed at myself soon after leaving my job. (I had been raised in a small town in a protective environment, raised to accept a good job with a good corporation). Instead, I had quit my job to enter a field that didn’t exist.

So I questioned my decision with shrill, terror-stricken howls. I repeated, “WHAT HAVE YOU DONE!!!!” as I tried to see leaving my job as a positive move into independent consultancy.

“WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO????”

I also heard that message in my head, but I decided it must be the voice of my mother, who had often expressed concerns about the work I would do. What would I do? I could still type, and write, and create deliverables. Why, I could even find another job.

WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO BE????”

That question had pestered me for years. Somewhere along the way I had come to believe that people are their occupations.

You ARE a fireman.

You ARE a lawyer.

Can someone really BE an information architect? I felt I could.

I’ve always been slightly belligerent—the kind of guy who asks “Why?” far beyond the point where it's considered cute. Whyness has always pervaded my professional self.

“Why is it,” I wondered, “that writers, people with tangible skills, cannot make their value understandable to corporate America? Why is business so content to deliver documents-from-hell to their customers and users? Why don’t users complain? Why do they accept what they are given? Why are they so passive when information has so much possibility?

I left the mauve cubicle just as electronic communication began to change our lives. In my first month on my own, I visited a former colleague. “Let me show you this,” he marveled. “It’s called a home page.”

At that time, I was tempted to become a communication product developer—especially as salaries for product builders were growing—but I couldn’t quite go there. My interest did not lie in developing products. I needed to follow a gut feeling that I should spread a message: Good information structure matters to people. You can structure information so people can find what they want, use it, and appreciate the experience. I became evangelical, and I began to teach more. I became an advocate for improving users’ understanding.

I appreciate the opportunity to work with others who envision clear structure, fight for plain language, and devise ways to help humans. I treasure moments of discovery when a student or client suddenly sees the light. I recall a facilitating session where I worked with a team exploring ways to put content online. I could tell one attendee was becoming frustrated when suddenly he exploded, “Oh, I get it—people don’t want to sift through reams of detail to get to the information they want!”

* * *

Last semester I was introducing myself to my class on information architecture and the user experience. Now beginning its 12th year, the class is a place where Washington-area students can gather and explore the field.

“I don’t always call myself an information architect,” I told students at the beginning of class. Several stared at me in surprise.

“As information architects, we explore labels.” I offered. “If the label refers to the specific analyses performed by user-experience professionals, then the label doesn’t fit me.” (I’m no longer in the deliverable business.) “But when the label is used to refer to someone who believes in making the complex clear, then you’ll find I embrace the term passionately.”

I’ve now spent 15 years embracing, questioning, avoiding, and accepting the label “information architect.” Fortunately, I remain passionate about my work. I like teaching people to see—helping folks better understand the implications of information structure, sharing strategies for helping others, and experiencing the inherent possibilities of good information architecture.

It’s the kind of work I always wanted to do when I grew up.